On 11 January 2016 Law Business was a guest at the “Zweiter Montag” event series of the law firm Singer Fössl at the Ritz-Carlton in Vienna. The subject: the use and significance of law firm rankings for in-house counsel. Unlike our training for law firms, this was not about how to get ranked — it was about how to read rankings as a client. Here is what we worked through with the participants.
How law firm rankings came about
We started with the origins. The first directory of this kind appeared in 1868; the rankings that matter today are children of the 1990s. Rankings are now produced in more than 190 countries, and the results have long had their own chapter on law firm websites: “Rankings”, “Awards”, “References”. We went through a series of firm websites for this — from the large international network to the small specialist practice. The finding was unambiguous: rankings have arrived across the whole industry, not just at the top end.
Where in-house counsel meet rankings
Next we sorted the points of contact. There are three. The first is law firm marketing: the placements presented to you come from these directories. The second are the interviews — the rankings’ researchers speak to the firms’ clients, and that can be you. The third is the search for a firm: rankings as a tool for arriving at a defensible shortlist in the first place.
How firms are usually selected
We put the common practice side by side. Four routes dominate: the shortlist that has “grown historically”, recommendations through one’s own network in the legal industry, personal experience — and, more rarely, a balanced scorecard. Three of those depend heavily on chance and on who you happen to know.
What rankings contribute to the selection
Three things, which we worked out together. The decision becomes numbers-based and therefore objectifiable. It is defensible if problems arise later — you can explain why this firm was instructed. And it saves considerable time through pre-selection.
We put numbers on that pre-selection effect using the German figures for 2015: 163,500 admitted lawyers, of whom 67,000 were listed in the public register of the profession — and around 11,400 working at firms that had made it into a single one of the leading international rankings. A six-figure field becomes a manageable one.
Which rankings are out of the question
This was the most important part of the evening. There are more than 1,200 rankings worldwide and only a small share of them work seriously. So we did not only look at which directories are worth using — above all we looked at which ones have to be sorted out.
The pattern of the dubious offers is recognisable, and we went through it point by point. Nominations are expressly accepted for firms and from firms. In essence the form asks for contact details, a country, a practice area and a single free text field for justification — not one matter, not one figure, nothing an editorial team could verify. The enquiry arrives with artificial time pressure: you have been “recommended as a leading expert”, there is “only one position”, a decision is needed “within the next couple of days”. And whoever accepts the award is then offered the paid award supplement, advertised with a distribution of well over 108,000 recipients. In the talk we set that figure against the circulation of three business and daily newspapers: one was below it, two above — the largest at roughly three and a half times as much.
In short: “pay for play”. The award is bought, it just is not called that.
How to recognise a serious ranking
For the counter-test we looked at how a carefully working directory proceeds. The principle it comes down to: the good ones make an effort. That becomes measurable in three things — the scope of the research, the number of data points collected, and the quality of the evaluation.
We went through a complete submission form for this. For each matter it asks: whether it is confidential, who the client is, what the matter was about and what role the firm played, the value of the matter, whether it was cross-border, who the lead partner was, who else was on the team, which other firms were involved, when it completed and whether there is press coverage. Up to 15 matters, no more than one page each. And beyond that: the researchers speak to the clients themselves.
Put that next to a form that in essence asks only for contact details and a justification, and no further explanation is needed.
Why one ranking is not enough
Finally we sorted the rankings by type: comprehensive, country-specific and niche. Using two example firms we played through what happens if you consult only one of them. A firm can be strong in one practice area and weak in another in a comprehensive ranking, and the other way round in a country-specific one. Anyone who reads a single directory sees a section and mistakes it for the picture. What works is a ranking mix of all three types — per practice area, not per firm.
The conclusion for in-house counsel
Three steps, in this order. First, separate the serious rankings from the doubtful followers. Second, weight the serious ones by quality. Third, sort by ranking type and build a mix. And before all of that comes the question to ask first: what the search for a firm is actually meant to achieve.
We did not invent the underlying system for this talk. It comes from Kompass Kanzlei-Rankings, the world’s first book on law firm rankings, published by C. H. BECK, MANZ and Stämpfli. Chapter 3 sorts the rankings into four quality levels.
All figures as at the time of the talk in January 2016.
The other side of this subject — your own submission to Chambers and Partners, The Legal 500, JUVE and other directories — is covered in our submission training and in full submission support.